The future innovations of electrics

Meet Lena Ernholm, M.Sc.EE, Product Area Manager at Electric Power Systems and Development Engineer at Mechatronics & Software.

What’s your background and education?I studied to become Electrical and Electronics engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. And I started working at Volvo Group, right after I received my degree in 2007.

What is it that you do?
I work in a group called Vehicle Electronics. In our group there are people with qualifications within everything from traditional electrical systems and hybrids, to sensors and microelectronics. I have been working as a research engineer since I started and the last year I have also been responsible for the area of Electrics.

Do you meet a lot of people from other companies?Absolutely, a lot of the projects I work on are done in cooperation with other Volvo companies or international partners, some running over quite long periods of time. So I get to travel quite a bit around Europe and meet people working with the same things as me. Which of course is very interesting and I feel that I constantly learn from that.

How did you become interested in electrics?It is something that always fascinated me, as a kid I used to pick apart alarm clocks to see how they worked. When I was finishing my education I got the opportunity to meet people from Volvo Group and I immediately realized that this was what I was looking for.

What will the future bring?
There are so many exciting things going on right now, especially within energy harvesting. We are identifying and utilizing power sources in the vehicle that we aren’t using today, for example vibrations. Other areas that I think will be really interesting in the future are new generations of generators and actuators, alternative fuels, hybrids and smarter communication systems. These technologies will really open the way for some interesting innovations.

What challenges you in your work?I like my job because it brings me so much freedom and opportunity to be innovative. To constantly be in contact with the most experienced people within my field means that I constantly learn and also that I have a large network of contacts.